About Ogilvy & Mather

“We sell. Or else.”

These words of David Ogilvy sound simple, but are deeply meaningful to us. David began the agency in 1948 and built Ogilvy & Mather into one of the most legendary branding companies in the world. Underpinning this is the philosophy of “divine discontent” — the simple belief that in order to be creative one must be permanently dissatisfied and always seeking to be better than good.

Our Business Model

We believe that our full range of services on a global scale are a unique strength. Earlier than others (as early as the 1980s), we diversified away from the advertising discipline alone. Our core disciplines of advertising, direct marketing, public relations and activation have therefore developed in depth as well as in breadth. Each of our disciplines is best-in-class and provides not just integrated execution (which can be superficial) but integrated thinking. The disciplines live within a tightly defined matrix “country system” with shared resources and a common P&L, but enough separation to ensure specialist excellence. Years of working together in cross-discipline teams means that we are probably the only agency in the world that integrates as a matter of habit, with real depth, wherever we operate.

Digital Dominance

We believe we are the most digital of the major networks. We have nearly 4,000 digital specialists around the world. Our point of view about digital is that it is not a silo apart or a “pure play” but something which is transforming all the disciplines in which we operate. Digital is therefore embedded at Ogilvy. We have undertaken in the last few years an aggressive plan to digitalize the agency. This manifests itself in cross-company practices, ranging from social to e-commerce, from mobile to data-driven creativity. A Digital Council in the agency is chaired by Global CEO Miles Young, and the digital agenda’s represented by our Chief Digital Officer, Brandon Berger.

Founder Culture

Finally, we have an especially strong agency culture no matter which Ogilvy office around the world you are in. The values and principles of our company were laid down by David Ogilvy when he founded the company at age 36, and his spirit imbues the company as strongly today as it did then. The critical point about their values is that they are strongly humanistic; the people who work here should be cared for, and they should behave with honesty and good manners.